Why President must not appoint INEC leadership  – Umeh

Admin I Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2024

 

ABUJA, Nigeria – The Senator representing Anambra Central Senatorial District, Senator (Dr) Victor Umeh, OFR, has suggested that the Office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should be stripped of the power to appoint top officials occupying leadership positions in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Umeh, an outspoken parliamentarian, pro-democracy advocate and good governance crusader, made the suggestion when a youth group, Catch Them Young Community Initiative (CATYCOI) paid him an advocacy visit.

According to a report by Praise Chinecherem, published in Anambra Daily, the Senator also described the timely transmission of electoral results as a vital step that will go a long way in guaranteeing credibility of the country’s elections and the deepening of democracy.

The areas of focus in the CATYCOI’s push for electoral reform tagged “Top 5 youth Electoral Reform priorities in Nigeria”, as indicated in the report include establishment of electoral offenses commission; timely transmission of election results; INEC leadership selection process; conclusions of post-election disputes before inauguration and interpretation of continuous voters registration provisions.

The Anambra Central Senator applauded the youths for their steadfastness and commitment towards advocating for reforms that will help to strengthen Nigeria’s electoral system.

Umeh, a chieftain of Labour Party (LP), said: “Electoral reform is a critical process that must be vigorously pursued for a functional and meaningful democracy. If we don’t have transparent process of acquiring power and creating leadership, then nothing will work.

“Our experience in the past election makes the issue of timely transmission of electoral results a worthy project to pursue. When results are transmitted in real time, the election outcome will be certain.

“In the event of any delay, virus can enter the process and jeopardize the real results. As results are generated and transmitted everyone will become aware and have possession of them. In the event of dispute, they’ll have recourse to the credible figures and the election credibility will be preserved.

“Regrettably, INEC didn’t keep to its promises in the last election of transmission to the portal. It said it had glitches which brought very monumental controversies to the exercise that led to sabotage of the process.

“Besides it’s a disservice that despite use of technology, we’re still relying on physical witnesses as evidence in election petition tribunal instead of the results generated from the portal which should serve as data base.”

Continuing, the Ohamadike Ndigbo added, “Making the electoral offences commission to be independent will ensure speedy prosecution of offenders. INEC shouldn’t be the one prosecuting offenders. And I’m sure this will be a popular opinion of the lawmakers.

“Again, resolving all election disputes before inauguration/swearing-in is the most reasonable thing to do. The lacuna in our electoral laws that once a candidate is declared winner and must be sworn-in, whether he won or not should be discarded.

“Otherwise, those who lose election but declared winner will get into office and deploy all funds and powers available to sabotage electoral disputes.

“INEC leadership appointments should be removed from the office of the president because he’s an interested party in all elections and will definitely be biased in choosing the electoral umpire.”

Speaking on the continuous voters registration amendment, the Senator contended that ending voters registration the moment election was over until another election season was inappropriate.

In his words: “To keep leaving voters who turn 18 daily until election time is a wrong way of doing continuous voters registration. Anyone who turns 18 should visit INEC office with record of his age and should be registered and issued a voter’s card.

“Stringent provisions should be made for failure to register voters. INEC should be made to know that periodic voters registration update is unacceptable. This will assist in saving time lost in preparing for election with its attendant confusions and cards distributions.”

He assured CATYCOI that he will circulate their proposal among his colleagues at the Senate, expressing confidence that the senators would support it, while imploring the members to remain relentless in their struggles for a better electoral system that will work for the advancement of democracy and the good of the country.

“Youths as engine room of any society are very resilient, tenacious, passionate and ready to secure a better and stable future which they would benefit more from. Well oriented and positioned youth is sine-qua-non to good governance.

“I know not many people are aware of the level of commitment of the 10th Assembly to getting Nigeria work. So many of us there are Progressives and those who want the correct thing to be done.

“Now we have opportunity to review the constitution and electoral laws, we will be able to look at these issues again.

“You may meet frustrations on the way, but I assure you that reasons will prevail sooner than you expect and these issues will find expression in our laws so our democracy saboteurs will be dealt with.

“I’m very pleased with the five areas you’ve selected for advocacy to defend our democracy and culture of good governance. With the type of commitment I’ve seen in young people to foster actions targeted at improving our electoral systems, we’re hopeful for better Nigeria,” the LP stalwart declared.

Speaking earlier, the Executive Director (ED) of CATYCOI, Nonso Orakwe stated that the group decided to pay Umeh an advocacy visit because of their belief in his capacity, quality representation and influential posture in the Upper Chamber of the Federal Legislature.

Orakwe remarked: “There’s ongoing electoral reform and constitution review in the National Assembly and Nigerians, especially the youths are happy about it, particularly considering the ugly experience of the past election.

“We’re here to engage you as our Senator who has enormous capacity and loud voice to influence decisions at the Senate. In fact, we can’t get this project done without you,” the CATYCOI ED said.

Likewise, the Programme Manager, Israel Oji revealed that the “Top 5 youth Electoral Reform priorities in Nigeria” was a product of survey carried out by the CATYCOI under its Youth led electoral reform project.

Oji explained that “Following our discovery that many youths were not happy with the outcome of the election, we decided to conduct a survey among 4000 youths, with 57 expressing their disappointment over the election outcome.

“We also conducted another survey, both online and physical among 12 fora across the country and 400 youths participated, out of which 87 recommendations were generated which we narrowed to 5 as reflecting the minds of youths across the country.

“It’s our belief that if these recommendations enter into the electoral reform, it’s going to reignite the passion of the disenchanted youths in subsequent elections.”